Essence of a Beautiful Disaster
by loveableabusive
Summary: Aeryon's fiance has been killed by pirates. Instead of weeping, she picks herself up and vows to kill every pirate she meets. She soon crosses path with a pirate that, not only convinces her to spare his life, offers to help hunt the pirates that killed her love. Can she trust him? What can he offer a broken shell of a woman who has nothing left but hate? JSxOC (May rate M later)


**Great thanks to my one and only Beta reader! Mufudekays.  
I've never had a Beta reader before!**

**I like this.**

**Disclaimer/Claimer: **I own nothing of the original Pirates of the Caribbean works but I have to tell you that Aeryon, the main character of this fiction belongs totally to me. She appears in the novel I am currently writing and she is such a real character to me that I had to give her her own thunder. Everyone, meet Aeryon.

**Prologue **

"It's only for a little while."

His voice was strong, stronger than hers, which is why, when thinking back, she remembered that she had decided against speaking altogether. Her voice would tremble, break and gone would be any semblance of the strong creature she was trying to be.

"Aeryon?" he touched her chin and gently lifted her head so her eyes met his. Her resolve wavered. He was so beautiful.

"I don't want you to go." she whispered softly. He smiled kindly and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, surprising her when it came away wet. "No. I promised myself I wouldn't cry." She knocked his hands away from her face in an attempt to stem the flow of tears herself.

His fingers curled around her wrists, pulling down her arms so she could see him properly as he ducked down a little to press his lips to hers. His fingers were clutching her skin so tight, she was sure she would bruise but there was not a part of her that cared. The kiss was brief, sweet and as he stepped away, it left her wanting more, even with the surly sailors that were milling around them, setting up for the journey Aeryon had dreaded for as long as she had known the dashing blonde man in front of her.

"Don't be sad. I'll be home soon."

She nodded, trying to push the desolate loneliness away, at least until it were proper to take her in its grasp

There was that last voyage, that last goodbye to his family at Port Royal before he returned to become her husband. She could not move with him, as her younger sister was still not an age to take care of herself, without parents, nor so young that moving her would be simple. So he had told her he would return to London, to be with her, forever.

Forever. The thought sounded delicious.

"Logan!" one of his fellows had stopped on the gangway, looking over his shoulder. "Cap'n says we're headin' out soon! We need you!"

Logan turned his head and smiled briefly at Aeryon, cupping her cheek in his palm, the other held loosely at his side. "I have to go," he whispered and she leaned forward slightly, allowing his voice to wrap around them both like a timeless bubble. "Wait for me?"

She smiled and nodded, reaching out and lacing her fingers in his. "Forever. I love you, Logan."

His smile was faint, torn and hurt. "I love you too, Aer."

**X**

For five years, the girl waited. She waited while everything around her moved on into the future while she stayed the same, she waited while her younger sister met her own love and married, moving out of the house she shared with her and she waited while everyone told her that he was not coming back.

He was going to come back.

She waited for five years for word to reach her.

She waited while the husbands of her friends returned from their own journeys across the void.

Aeryon was so patient, she put up with the laughter behind the hands of the women who lived near her, who gossiped about her. She put up with the loneliness, the hurt and the way her heart knew the truth long before she did. He was going to come home. She _knew_ it.

So when she received that letter, a chill morning on the fifth year after his departure, she didn't believe it. She stared at it for longer than she could bare thinking about, sitting at her scrubbed kitchen table, numbness washing through her like a wave.

"_Aeryon_," She read for the forth time that morning. "_How are you keeping? It has been far too long since I wrote last but I just have not managed to find the time. This time, however, I feel as though it is my _duty_ as your cousin, as family, to write this letter and I do so with a heavy, heavy heart. My Harris would never forgive me for writing this but I am afraid your needs come first, despite how much he tells me that the best thing for you is to be kept in the dark. Your Logan is dead._"

Aeryon lowered the letter and placed it flat on the table, closing her eyes and wincing as she felt her cheeks become wet. She did not want to read the rest of it through again, not now she knew it by heart. The first time she had read it, she had gripped the thick paper so hard it had ripped. The second time she had read it, she had scrunched the damned thing up and threw it against the wall. The third time, she just simply cried. By this final reading, the ink had become too smudged by the tears she told herself weren't there and the paper too damaged. He was killed by pirates. She was sorry. If there was anything to do to help... Lies mixed in with truth, truth with lies. He was dead. Anna just did not care.

That night, she cried herself to sleep. She curled herself in the pool of moonlight, crushing his assorted belongings he had left with her before and cried until she felt she had no more tears to offer. The moon did not console her. The stars turned their heads from her and she was left there, shuddering under a threadbare blanket with no hope of resurfacing from her misery.

It took her three days after the letter to get ready. She didn't bother with goodbyes: her sister had begun to look at Aeryon with the same pity as everyone else and she had no need for that. She threw on some old clothes, tucked her flaming red hair under the green bandana Logan had left behind for her to remember him by and strolled out the door.

That was how she found herself, standing on the same gangway her love had stood on five years before, staring out into the crashing ocean in front of her. Her arms crossed across her breasts as an older man marched toward her and she took in his disapproving expression, his guarded stance, before he even opened his mouth.

"Aeryon-" He began but she cut across him, desperately.

"Logan's dead, Niall." The words came out stronger than she had ever believed possible. Her voice did not crack, it did not waver and she did not blink. She stared at the man who had crossed into the Caribbean with her father so long ago, whose merchant vessel had housed, temporarily, her and her sister once or twice while running from their tyrant of a mother and they were lucky enough that the ship were docked. Niall had known both girls since they were knee high and had taken care of both of them when their mother died, followed closely by the far-off news of the death of their father.

"Oh... I am sorry." She knew he meant it.

"I want you to take me to Tortuga." She had already spoken to the first mate, they were headed for the Caribbean in the morning. Tortuga wasn't so far out of his way. The perfect place to start her search...

"You... What?"

Aeryon's fists clenched. "I'm going to _find_ the bastards that killed my Logan. I am going to find them and I am going to kill them. I am going to kill _every single pirate that dares cross my path until none survive_." She took a deep breath and unhooked a small pouch from her belt, throwing it into his hands. "That's half what you'll get. You'll get more when we land."

Niall peered into the pouch, causing his eyebrows to almost become lost in his shaggy grey hair. He shook his head sharply and tried to offer the pouch back to Aeryon. "I can't take this."

"It's part of the savings for the wedding." Her voice, thankfully remained strong. "I don't need them anymore."

His face was suddenly overcome with grief. "Oh, I can't let you do this, please... I've known you sine you were a babe... I don't want you to..." He reached out with his empty hand and cupped her face in his palm. "They will _destroy_ you, Aer."

Her green eyes flashed, dangerously. "Oh they can _try_."

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